Tuesday, January 17, 2017

Poems of Resistance, Power & Resilience – Claudia Rodriguez

Close up image of a microphone on a stage. The audience that is facing the microphone is blurred, appearing as a myriad of colors (red, white, green, yellow, etc.)
As the incoming administration builds its agenda of attack on marginalized people, on freedom of speech, on the earth itself, poetry will continue to be an essential voice of resistance. Poets will speak out in solidarity, united against hatred, systemic oppression, and violence and for justice, beauty, and community.

In this spirit, Split This Rock is offering its blog as a Virtual Open Mic. For the rest of this frightening month, January of 2017, we invite you to send us poems of resistance, power, and resilience.

We will post every poem we receive unless it is offensive (containing language that is derogatory toward marginalized groups, that belittles, uses hurtful stereotypes, etc.). After the Virtual Open Mic closes, we hope to print out and mail all of the poems to the White House.

For guidelines on how to submit poems for this call, visit the Call for Poems of Resistance, Power & Resilience blog post


***


Y Volver, volver!
by Claudia Rodriguez

Y volver volver
VOLVER
con la opresión
otra vez.
Llegare hasta donde estés
yo se perder, yo se perder
pero jamás me venceré.


History repeats itself
spins like a 45
but then there’s the
scratching- (sound funny)
I keep coming back
to the same place- like
literally. Like a poem
about writing- writing itself.

I teach at Cal State Dominguez Hills
Toro Pride Tuesdays
burgundy and gold horned
students, learners and spiel-lers
of knowledge , ideas bouncing
off those 70s concrete walls,
between the Japanese gardens
bonsai trees growing little
and back to CAMS, the high school
I went to when I was just a little
9th grade girl
from Compton, which started to feel
little for me so I knew I had to go.
Looking for an alternative and CAMS high
landed on my map- my route in this road
less taken but now we’ve started a path.
CAMS is on the campus of Dominguez Hills
and back in 1990 I never fathomed
that in 2014 I’d be
back in my old English classroom, spinning another
story as “Prof. Rodriguez and students Breaking
Down the Gender Binary, And Other Ideas Crossing
Like Intersectionality.”

History repeats itself

It’s just like heaven
reincarnated to be
hovering up above
over you, I’m so over you
you, you my prop
I do whatever it takes
to rule over you
rules over you, to strap you down
these rules of how to rule the masses
It’s my privilege
my privilege that I do it to you
I stick it, twist around my stake
you’re cooked my little brownies
die, rot in the scent pool that you created
everyone is on my trail but I don’t lose
track of the ones I’ve laid, they  call it rise
to power for a reason.  Now come over here
fluff me up, you with your misdirected anger
and misinformation the economic pressure
you feel it on your lomo, that’s what the bad hombres
call it, when they put their back into it.
And you my chickie with your liberal views
your attraction to standing by all voyeuristic
as the position we’ve inherited all the way to our
veins wrecks havoc, too funny to turn away. Get a good
look in the mirror.  See the ghosts of oppressions past
it’s a hate that will not concede….
yes there may be lots of people that hate me
but there’s that one kid who doesn’t
come here and fluff me up
my desire it is magnetic- like a yuge
magnate- cause opposites attract


together bonding they stick together
through their fear of another planet
that’s what they sound like, like they’re
from another planet, this isn’t a turf war
we’re not gonna be smudged out
here WE come
come get your smudging
smoke screen against your hurt,
your broken place- your broken
place in society, you have us
pockets of macro-classes spinning our
lives like a saucer on a stick 
stuck in between my teeth
still speaking out against your lashing out
you didn’t break but you are broken
and you hurt at the memories we conjure up
cause we do it like Ouija speaking to our spirits
ending the vicarious pain, memories I have of you
nightmares I call them. So I stay woke
I’m alive
I survive
(deep heavy breathing) Please join me if you feel like it, please join
me so we can feel like, alike
like a….close my eyes
lets focus on our breath,
just our breath
our breath, our breath

our breath, I open
up my eyes and I see my people
I see women who stay lit
I see blacks who stay lit
Latinx who stay lit
Queers who stay lit
like a bomb fire, healing those cracks with our
breaths, we’re not done filling in the gaps
of what you call history,  one you wish
to forget it hurts, you feel unliked, not wanted
welcome to the nightmare. I’ve been holding
my breath waiting for the day that I can
finally say ‘They’re here”
“Woke white folk they are here”


History repeats itself and I am here today
and know that I’ll be here again
some tomorrow that our attraction
for each other, through our breaths
is a magnate for positivity, to, like superman
tuning back time flying around Earth backwards,
we hopefully  turning back some of the negativity
that has been spun out into our society.  Our breaths
none bigger than the other, none smaller


Y Volver, volver!

History repeats itself
spins like a 45
but then there’s the
scratching- (sound funny)
I keep coming back
to the same place- like
literally. Like a poem
about writing- writing itself.

I teach at Cal State Dominguez Hills
Toro Pride Tuesdays
burgundy and gold horned
students, learners and spiel-lers
of knowledge , ideas bouncing
off those 70s concrete walls,
between the Japanese gardens,
bonsai trees growing little
and back to CAMS, the high school
I went to when I was just a little
9th grade girl
from Compton, which started to feel
little for me so I knew I had to go.
Looking for an alternative and CAMS high
landed on my map- my route in this road
less taken but now we’ve started a path.
CAMS is on the campus of Dominguez Hills
and back in 1990 I never fathomed
that in 2009 I’d be
back in my English classroom, spinning another
story as “Prof. Rodriguez and students Breaking
Down the Gender Binary, And Other Ideas Crossing
Like Intersectionality.”

History repeats itself
only if you don't understand the reason.
 7 years now adjuncting
at CSUDH
a campus of commuters
full time workers
part-time students,
commuters commuting not planting solid roots
on the campus.
59% low income
64% female,
53% Hispanic/Latino
17% African-American
So many older adults, not traditional
no prior traditions of degrees in the family tree
of first generation college students.
Mentoring not just lecturing
became my motto: group work and office hours
I tell them are about social networking
making those ties that will help us grow,
pull each other and learn to ask for help, among other
things. Over 50 letters of recommendation written,
5 independent studies and 4 classes with social learning components
are how I encourage my students to pursue higher level of education.
In service to my department I attend departmental meetings
and advocate on my students behalf. 

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